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Do You Really Know?

The day after my dad left my mum, my parents arranged to meet up. I was too young to appreciate exactly what for, and frankly too preoccupied with my own feelings. A young lad was left babysitting me and my sisters. Stephen was only thirteen and not really equipped to deal with a highly-strung boy who desperately missed his dad. I don’t know what sparked the tantrum, but I remember intense anger and frustration descending over me as I ranted and cried.

Somewhere in amongst it all, and probably experiencing some desperation himself, Stephen uttered the words: “I know how you feel…”

My response was stinging. Even as a ten year old, I recognised the look in his eyes. Caught up in my own pain, though, I didn’t let up. The hour or so before adults came to relieve him must have felt an eternity.

Making the mistake of thinking you know how someone feels isn’t restricted to inexperienced teenagers, though. Most of us do it at some point or other. And note that I said “think” here. Because we might not put the thoughts explicitly into words, but we find other ways of expressing our empathy.

In truth, we can’t really know how another person is feeling. Unless we’ve gone through exactly the same experiences, and had exactly the same influences throughout our lives, that’d be impossible. Because how someone responds to their parents separating (or losing their job, or a bereavement, or any other significant event in their life) won’t just depend on the event. Their previous experience and outlook on life has an impact as well.

I finally understood following a conversation with my uncle.

Geoff was my dad’s twin brother. They’d both had to deal with their father dying when they were only two years old then, aged four, being sent to boarding school until they were fifteen, often remaining there during school holidays.

By the time I was around and aware enough to make distinctions, I knew they were two different characters. Geoff seemed more gregarious than my dad, for example. I was also aware that my dad spent a lot of time with my grandma, while Geoff didn’t. As time passed, a rift formed between Geoff and his mum, and the twins hardly ever saw each other – in spite of my dad’s efforts to keep in touch.

This frustrated my dad, in part because he felt it was a one-sided relationship, but he’d also bought into the common perception that twins have a closer bond than other siblings. Together with the shared childhood traumas, you’d expect it to make them closer. But it didn’t.

Which brings me to my conversation with Geoff. My aunt had died, prompting me to call round. As ever, and in spite of his bereavement, he made me very welcome. This time, though, he opened up in a way I hadn’t expected.

I won’t speculate why he was so open, nor will I share everything here. But the bit that’s relevant is when he asked me not to judge either him or my dad. Puzzled by his remark, I asked him what he meant, and he went on to explain that he knew that neither of them had been particularly good family men. Then he referred to their school days and how that couldn’t have prepared them for family life. After all, he told me, your dad became just another one of the boys in the dormitory. And, with that sentence, I understood his attitude towards my dad.

More than that, though, I realised that, if twins can experience similar traumas as youngsters and yet come away from them feeling so wildly different, how can the rest of us be arrogant enough to think we understand how anyone else truly feels about anything?

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the effort to help others and show we care, but let’s do it without making assumptions. If we set aside our preconceptions, the chances are we’ll actually be in a better position to help.

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4 Responses

Thank you, Graeme, for writing this moving and powerful piece. For all the right reasons, it’s very easy to confuse empathy with knowledge and, as you’ve so eloquently put, end up causing more harm than good. Anyone involved in counselling knows that the best form of support is to listen and ask questions to help the person to reach their own understanding of a given situation. Many of us, myself included, find it hard to overcome the urge to offer solutions to problems when just listening is often the best way forward.

Thanks for posting, Graeme!
I am often amazed how some people can recall certain happenings from their childhood, and even how they felt during them. I have very little memory of mine; most of what I do remember involved some injury to myself. Finding out how things, including my parents splitting up, made me feel could probably only be done by a Hypnotist, if that even worked.
In listening to others, I agree most times they need a sounding board, a way to put voice to the roiling emotions and the debate going on within the internal committee. Sometimes, though, they ask for advice. They want to know how someone else would deal with what they’re going through. In answering those type questions, one should take your suggestion and think before speaking.
Wise advice, indeed.

Well, thank you for your comments, John. I never know whether the things I write here will strike a chord or even irritate people, so getting any kind of feedback is helpful. To get your own remarks – which touch on some clearly personal issues – can only make me feel grateful.

From a personal point of view, I went through a lot of adjustments over the years as I came to terms with my parents splitting up. Compared to the traumas some people experience, when I stand back and look at it the situation seems petty. No PTSD here. Even so, it was about 35 years after the event that I reached something approaching closure and to get there I spent 8 months in psychotherapy (though strangely, that wasn’t why I wanted to see a therapist). It was good to have that experience because, when my dad died a couple of years later, there was no unfinished business.

Whatever traumas you faced, I hope you’ve found some peace.

Looking ahead, though, I guess our paths will cross very regularly in this weird and crazy world of blogging and baring our souls. Glad you’re along for the ride…